From puget sound to baja,
it made perfect sense, and
the san francisco bay only
foreshortened the reality.

How strange the coastlines
must have looked to mapmakers,

raised on the rorschach of europe
and the vague splatterings of asia!

The hard, straight cliffs, with
extended beaches rolling down the latitudes.

And then to create a shell
into which were poured
the surveyors’ delineations;
a dark Continent of praries and lakes.

To divide the broadened land,
under stark confusion from the

bleak unfamiliar terrain, into
certain manageable Territories.

Not by waterways and mountains,
but by Reasonable demarcation.

Carved up by sweet Destiny and
swiftly tamed by caravan and sword,
elongating the boundaries toward the sea,
over the fault lines to vindicate Vespucci.